Dispute Resolution Research Center, Kellogg School of Management

Abhas Bussan is a negotiation between a Japanese manufacturer and an Indian distributor. It is designed to be used with Howard Raiffa's description of formal analysis in his book, The Art and Science of Negotiation. See the chapter about quantifying preferences and priorities. You may also have students to use the Okhuysen and Pounds spreadsheet for this exercise.

Preparation: 120 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

All in the Family
Author: Joao Neves
Source: DRRC

All in the Family is a two party exercise that illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of four different procedures for distributing a set of ten items between two parties: 1) “Divide and Choose” works off parties’ own priorities and estimates of the other party’s priorities and encourages students to use and understand the maximization procedure, called Solver, in Excel; 2) “Alternating Selection” illustrates first mover advantage effects; 3) “Bargaining” – face to face or electronic – often leads to suboptimal agreements; 4) “FOTE” (full, open, and truthful exchange) illustrates in what ways students can improve their outcome over their bargained outcome. This exercise includes an Excel spreadsheet for students to use to compare and contrast the different procedures, teaching notes, and a second Excel spreadsheet for the instructor to use to post student results.

Preparation: 10 minutes
Negotiation: 30 minutes
Debriefing: 40 minutes
Optional final part: 50 minutes

Alpha Beta
Author: Thomas Gladwin
Teaching Notes: Jeanne M. Brett
Source: Public Domain (no charge), DRRC version

DRRC's version of Alpha Beta is a cross-cultural, team-on-team negotiation of a potential alliance. The exercise requires the two parties to enact a cultural style during the negotiation.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

Amanda
Authors: Jeanne M .Brett & Rekha Karambayya
Source: DRRC

This is a manager-as-a-third-party exercise. There is a dispute between two managers, and a third manager becomes involved as a dispute resolver. There are two versions of the exercise: In one version the third party manager is a peer of the disputants; in the other version the third party manager is their boss.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Negotiation: 45 minutes

Architectural Design Firm
Authors: Linda Palmer & Leigh Thompson
Source: DRRC

Three-member cross-functional teams negotiate the design of a house, in which a client specifies required features and a limited budget. Each negotiator is assigned a role: the structural expert, the finish expert, or the land expert. Each expert is given confidential information about pricing for various options they can include in the design plan, a confidential profit schedule (indicating how much profit they will make if their option is included in the design), and special bonus information involving integrative tradeoffs. The main task of the group is to determine the set of options, beyond those required by the client, to be included in the design for the house. The exercise involves three dependent measures: perceptions of group members' competitiveness, joint profit (and integrative trade-offs), and equality of resource distribution.

Preparation: 25 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

At Your Service
Authors: Jeanne M. Brett & Michele Gelfand
Source: DRRC

This is an exercise that can be used to teach integrative negotiation skills in the context of deal making or dispute resolution. The exercise was intended for undergraduates; however, it may be used with more advanced students especially to illustrate: 1) the differences between negotiating deals versus disputes, and 2) negotiating as a solo and negotiating as a team in the deal making/dispute resolution context. It can also be used to illustrate how culture interacts with negotiation context.

Preparation: 15-20 minutes
Negotiation: 30 minutes
Debrief: 60 minutes

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Best Stuff on Earth
Authors: Holly A. Schroth, Damien Dirringer, John Hudson, Nadir Hussain, Michael McLaren, Kim Roseman & James Slipe
Source: DRRC

This is a multiparty (7), multi-issue negotiation intended to simulate the negotiations that occur in top management teams. The exercise is based on the buyout of Snapple Beverages by Quaker Oats.

Preparation: 25-30 minutes
Negotiation: 90-120 minutes

BioPharm-Seltek Negotiation
Author: Leonard Greenhalgh
Source: Creative Consensus, Inc.

BioPharm-Seltek is a distributive negotiation over the sale of a manufacturing facility that produces genetically engineered compounds. Negotiators are given information about the costs of their alternatives, but have to determine aspirations, reservation prices, and opening offers themselves. There are no teaching notes; however, the teaching notes associated with Coffee Contract can easily be adapted for this exercise.

Preparation: 10 minutes
Negotiation: 20 minutes

Blue Buggy
Author: Gaylen D. Paulson
Source: DRRC

This is a two-party deal making exercise with a negative bargaining zone. Nevertheless 15% - 20% of negotiators reach agreement illustrating irrationality and agreement biases. Another 15% - 20% generate creative agreements that illustrate the limitations of the frames and assumptions negotiators bring to the table.

Preparation: 10 minutes
Negotiation: 15 minutes

Brainstorming
Authors: Robert Sutton & Holly A. Schroth
Source: DRRC

Brainstorming is an exercise that can be used to teach group creativity and group process, including norms, roles, status, and power.

Preparation: 20-25 minutes
Negotiation: 40 minutes

Brookside Hospital vs. Black Computer Systems, Inc.: Mediation Version
Authors: Stephen B. Goldberg & Jeanne M. Brett
Source: DRRC

This version of the dispute between Black Computers and Brookside Hospital is to be used to teach mediation. It can be used in a joint class of law and management students, just with law students (who then take the roles of advocates and principles) or just with management students playing the roles of the principles. There is no separate information for advocates; however, there is Information for the Mediator, Teaching Notes for the mediation version, and two suggested readings, one describing the mediation process and the other outlining the role of the advocate in mediation.

Preparation: 60 minutes or more
Negotiation: 75 – 90 minutes

Brookside Hospital vs. Black Computer Systems, Inc.: Negotiation Version
Authors: Stephen B. Goldberg & Jeanne M. Brett
Source: DRRC

This is a dispute between a hospital and a software and hardware supplier. It is similar in structure to Rapid Printing vs. Scott Computers. It can also be used by management or law students alone or working in teams. It can be used to teach interests, rights, and power approaches to dispute resolution as well as advanced dispute resolution concepts like linked BATNAs and redirection of negotiations from rights or power to interests.

Preparation: 60 minutes or more
Negotiation: 75 – 90 minutes

Bullard Houses
Author: Ron Karp; revised by Mox Tan, David Gold, Andrew Clarkson, Paul Cramer, Douglas Stone & Bruce M. Patton
Source: Harvard Program on Negotiation (PON), DRRC version

DRRC's version of Bullard Houses is an excellent exercise for raising issues of ethics in negotiation. It is a one-on-one, qualitative negotiation between agents over a piece of prime real estate. It emphasizes the role of agents, lying, misrepresentation, and trust. The teaching notes have been updated and the confidential roles simplified.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

Buying a House
Author: Sally Blount
Source: DRRC

Buying a House is a two-party, quantified distributive negotiation with a $10,000 overlapping bargaining range. It can be used to teach pure distributive negotiations and the use of comparative standards.

Preparation: 15 minutes
Negotiation: 20 minutes

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C-Suite
Author: Leigh Thompson
Source: KTAG

C-Suite is an exercise that challenges groups to organize quickly, develop roles, and enact norms. Leadership is critical.

Preparation: 10-20 minutes
Exercise: 30 minutes
Debrief: 20-30 minutes

Carter Racing
Authors: Jack Brittain & Sim Sitkin
Additional Teaching Notes: Margaret A. Neale
Source: DRRC

This exercise can be used to illustrate decision biases in negotiations. The exercise uses data from the Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident. Students are asked to use those data to make a decision whether or not to enter an automobile race.

Preparation: 20 minutes
Negotiation: 30-50 minutes

Cartoon
Authors: Jeanne M. Brett & Tetsushi Okumura, based on Moms.com by Ann E. Tenbrunsel & Max H. Bazerman
Source: DRRC

Cartoon is a two-party, deal making exercise. It is the U.S. - Japanese version of Moms.com.

Preparation: 60-90 minutes
Negotiation: 90 minutes

Cascade Manor
Authors: Susan Brodt & Leigh Thompson
Source: DRRC

This is a team-on-team quantified negotiation exercise with integrative potential. It contains distributive, compatible, and logrolling issues. It also deals with common and uncommon knowledge, as teammates do not have all the same information. This exercise provides an excellent opportunity to discuss the management of a negotiation team.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Negotiation: 45 minutes

Chestnut Drive
Authors: Mark N. Gordon & Bruce M. Patton
Source: Harvard Program on Negotiation (PON), DRRC version

DRRC's version of Chestnut Drive is a dispute between a group of neighbors and the company that is building a condominium development at the end of their street. The exercise provides a good opportunity to introduce dispute resolution concepts of interests, rights, and power. It is also a vehicle for discussing credible threats.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

Club West
Authors: Craig R. Fox & Alan C. Fox
Teaching Notes: Stephen B. Goldberg & Jeanne M. Brett
Source: DRRC, adapted by Stephen B. Goldberg & Jeanne M. Brett

Club West is a lawsuit. It illustrates setting reservation prices in legal disputes, egocentric bias, and reactive devaluation.

Preparation: 30-60 minutes
Negotiation: 30 minutes

Coaching Exercise
Author: Leigh Thompson
Source: KTAG

This exercise is designed to introduce participants to the process of peer coaching. The key assumption of coaching is that in order to effectively consult and help people, teams, and organizations, it is necessary to: 1) establish an effective relationship, 2) understand people’s real concerns, and 3) appreciate cultural and organizational factors that surround the person, team, and organization. This exercise is focused on improving your ability to listen, establish trust and rapport, and be helpful to your teammates. As such, it is centered on key EI (Emotional Intelligence) skills.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Exercise: 60 minutes
Debrief: 30-45 minutes

Cobalt Systems
Author: Catherine Tinsley
Source: DRRC

Cobalt Systems is a joint venture negotiation between a U.S. and a Korean company. It is set up to teach Howard Raiffa's formal analysis technique for prioritizing issues (The Art and Science of Negotiation). It is also useful for teaching the concept that culture impacts parties' positions on the issues.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

Coffee Contract
Authors: Tony Simons & Thomas Tripp
Source: DRRC

Coffee Contract is a distributive exercise. It concerns the contract for coffee at the Cornell Hotel School. The exercise provides a good context for teaching fundamental negotiation concepts like bargaining zone, reservation prices, BATNAs, as well as distributive negotiation tactics, openings, concession making, and threats. Creative students may build in some integrative elements, and even if the students fail to find these creative ideas, the instructor can use them to introduce integrative negotiations.

Preparation: 15 minutes
Negotiation: 30 minutes

College Town Apartments
Author: Leigh Thompson
Source: DRRC

This is a qualitative exercise. The dispute is between two college roommates concerning the timely payment of rent. The exercise has a large variety and range of mutually acceptable outcomes. It involves perceptual differences regarding one's own behavior as well as the other party's. Since the two parties live together and share common interests, relational, emotional, and social issues also factor into the resolution.

Preparation: 45 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

Commodities Brokers
Authors: Leigh Thompson & Leaf Van Boven
Source: DRRC

This is a set of three negotiations among two brokers. It is a multiple-time-period, two-party integrative negotiation between two brokers trading four commodities in which there is risk involved. Participants are randomly assigned to the role of Broker Jones or Broker Smith in the trading of various quantities and grades of wheat, rice, copper, and crude oil. This is an excellent negotiation exercise for illustrating the impact of risk and uncertainty on behavior and performance over time.

Preparation: 15 minutes
Negotiation: 30 minutes

Commodity Purchase
Author: Leonard Greenhalgh
Source: Creative Consensus, Inc.

This simulation is best run with six participants in each group, but can be run with fewer. It involves a seller who has 100,000 pheasant eggs and up to five buyers who need the eggs for very different purposes. If the eggs are simply auctioned to the highest bidder, the seller achieves a suboptimal outcome. Combinations of buyers can pool their purchasing power and, instead of competing, collaborate to share the produce.

Preparation: 15 minutes
Negotiation: 30-45 minutes

Comparative Advertising
Authors: Leonard Greenhalgh & Max H. Bazerman
Source: Public Domain (no charge), DRRC version

This exercise is an iterative prisoner’s dilemma exercise set in the context of the decision of whether or not to engage in negative advertising. It is unusual in that face-to-face negotiation is only one component of the exercise. Most of the “action” occurs in the simultaneous decisions that the parties make. It can be done in pairs or groups.

Preparation: 10 minutes
Negotiation: 45 minutes

Computron Pharmaceuticals
Authors: Leigh Thompson, Victoria Medvec, Wendi Adair, Peter Kim, Kathleen O’Conner & Janice Nadler
Source: DRRC

This exercise is a two-party negotiation requiring multiple skills to reach fully integrative agreements. Parties include a potential hire and hiring officer for a pharmaceutical engineering company. One party's BATNA is uncertain. This is an excellent negotiation for teaching advanced negotiation skills including: logrolling (tradeoffs), compatible issues, contingency contracts, etc.

Preparation: 30-60 minutes
Negotiation: 45-75 minutes

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Data Printer
Author: Leonard Greenhalgh
Source: Public Domain (no charge), DRRC version

This is a qualitative dispute resolution negotiation between a party who had a printer repaired and a party who repaired the printer. Although the technology referred to in the exercise makes it dated, it can be used to discuss issues of interest, rights, power, and fairness in the context of the resolution of disputes.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

Day Care Task Force
Author: Leigh Thompson
Source: KTAG

In this multiparty exercise, a task force comprised of six people—five members of an organization and one external (non-employee) member—decide whether to implement a day care facility within their organization. The exercise simulates a twelve month period in which members of the task force are given monthly reports of the success of the day care center. Each month, the group must decide whether to continue or to terminate the facility. The exercise is designed to illustrate the escalation of commitment phenomenon in groups.

Preparation: 30-45 minutes
Group discussion: 60-90 minutes

Diamond Bidding Game
Author: J. Keith Murnighan
Source: DRRC

This is an asymmetric prisoner’s dilemma game for two individuals or two parties. It is an excellent exercise to show how unequal payoff distributions, when known, can throw a wrench into potentially cooperative relations. Diamond Bidding Game works well as a follow-up to Gas Station Game.

Preparation: 10 minutes
Negotiation: 45 minutes

Drug-Testing Program
Author: Leonard Greenhalgh
Source: Creative Consensus, Inc.

This three-party exercise involves a personnel manager, an employee assistance program coordinator, and an MBA-trained employee who has tested positive for marijuana. The personnel manager faces pressures to fire or rehabilitate the employee. The exercise introduces issues of coalition formation, responsibility to the corporation, precedent, evidence, and corporate policies.

Preparation: 40 minutes
Exercise: 30 minutes

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Eazy’s Garage
Authors: Bruce M. Patton
Source: Harvard Program on Negotiation (PON), DRRC version

DRRC's version of Eazy's Garage is a two-party, qualitative, dispute resolution exercise with some limited opportunities for integrative potential. In Eazy’s Garage, the parties, a dentist and a garage station owner, are in a dispute over a repair bill. The exercise can be used to teach concepts of interests, rights, and power, but the teaching notes do not present that approach.

Preparation: 10 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

El-Tek
Authors: Max H. Bazerman & Jeanne M. Brett
Source: DRRC

This is a two-party, quantified negotiation between two divisions of a large, decentralized organization. The negotiation concerns the potential transfer of a product from the division that developed it, and plans to use it as a component in its own products, to the division that has lower cost manufacturing and the corporate charter to market such a product. The exercise is very good for helping students visualize a Pareto optimal frontier.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 90 minutes

Endowed Chair
Author: Leigh Thompson
Source: KTAG

Endowed Chair is an exercise that is designed to expose students to a common group decision making situation in which relevant information is distributed differently among group members. The key challenge facing the group is to assemble all of the information and make the best choice possible.

Preparation: 30-35 minutes
Exercise: 45-60 minutes

Energetics Meets Generex
Author: W. Trexler Proffitt, Jr.
Source: DRRC

This is a two-party, distributive negotiation based on a real California wind energy farm transaction in 2002. It is good for illustrating biases including anchoring and availability. There is the option to provide an outside offer during the negotiation that illustrates the power of BATNA.

Preparation: 10 minutes
Negotiation: 30 minutes

Everyone Has a Number Market
Author: J. Keith Murnighan
Source: DRRC

This market exercise is for medium or large groups (i.e., 16 or more). Participants all receive private information that determines the kinds of strategies that are beneficial to them within the market, where they must negotiate in dyads but can move from one potential partner to another. The exercise moves from market interactions to debriefings to additional market interactions and debriefings. Issues raised include the value of information and the importance of nonverbal cues.

Preparation: 5 minutes
Negotiation: 10-15 minutes

Executive Decision Making Game
Author: J. Keith Murnighan
Source: DRRC

This is a multi-party (typically 4 or 5) veto game, where one party has veto power and the other parties must either band together to protect themselves or try to deal individually with the veto player. A simple but compelling analog to the formation of unions in the face of harsh treatment by an authority, this exercise generates a wide range of outcomes from open revolt to intense internal competition.

Preparation: 10 minutes
Negotiation: 25 minutes

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Federated Science Fund
Author: Elizabeth A. Mannix
Source: DRRC

This is a three-person coalition exercise. The exercise manipulates the power of the players, the preferred distribution norm, and the level of expected future interaction, creating a tension between allocation based on power versus distribution norms. The expectation of future interaction further complicates the choice of whether or not to form two-way or three-way coalitions.

Preparation: 10 minutes
Negotiation: 45 minutes

FG&T Towers
Authors: Rand Boyers & Stephen B. Goldberg
Teaching Notes: Stephen B. Goldberg, Tiffany Galvin & Jeanne M. Brett
Source: DRRC

This is a multi-issue, multiparty, qualitative negotiation. The parties, all law partners, must decide whether or not the partnership should purchase their office building. This exercise can be used to discuss common and specific interests in the context of negotiation.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 60-90 minutes

Food for Thought
Authors: Hoon-Seok Choi & Leigh Thompson
Source: KTAG

The purpose of Food for Thought is to examine creativity in brainstorming groups. The key learning points include: 1) optimal brainstorming techniques, 2) how to evaluate the creativity of ideas, and 3) analysis of why groups are not as creative as individuals.

Preparation: 15 minutes
Exercise: 20-45 minutes

Funny Business
Authors: Hoon-Seok Choi & Leigh Thompson
Source: KTAG

The purpose of Funny Business is to examine creativity in groups while brainstorming. The key learning points include: 1) optimal brainstorming techniques, 2) how to evaluate the creativity of ideas, and 3) analysis of why groups are not as creative as individuals.

Preparation: 15 minutes
Exercise: 20-30 minutes

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Galbraith and Company
Author: Don Moore
Source: DRRC

Galbraith and Company is a multiparty, multi-issue negotiation in which coalitions typically control the outcome. It provides the opportunity to discuss group decision making from a negotiation perspective and the effect of coalition formation on the outcomes of group decision making. There are five parties to this case. Note the Galbraith exercise has many features similar to FG&T Towers by Stephen Goldberg. An instructor would not want to plan to use both exercises in the same class. However, it might be interesting to use the short coalitions exercise Federated Science Fund prior to negotiating Galbraith to give students skills and familiarity with coalitions.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

Game of 4-3-2
Author: J. Keith Murnighan
Source: DRRC

This is a three-party coalition game, with three variations. It shows how subtle changes in the structure of the situation have marked impacts on the negotiation process. Discussion highlights the strategies to be considered in choosing between individually beneficial two-party agreements and collectively beneficial three-party agreements.

Time: Three 25 minute rounds

Game of Envelopes and Money
Author: J. Keith Murnighan
Source: DRRC

This is a large group social dilemma game where the parties can win or, more likely, lose real money. Based on an exercise described by Dave Messick and Christel Rutte, it shows how difficult cooperation is for large groups of people who cannot interact to boost commitment.

Time: Takes 5 min. to play and additional time to tabulate results.

Gas Station Game
Author: J. Keith Murnighan
Source: DRRC

This is a prisoner's dilemma game for two individuals or two parties. It revolves around repeated price-setting choices by the owners of two gasoline stations. It moves from no communication, to communication, to a known endpoint looming in the near future. The exercise shows the conflicts people have in making basic cooperative or non cooperative choices and raises issues of trust, intergroup, and intragroup coordination.

Preparation: 10 minutes
Negotiation: 30-40 minutes

GI-Fix
Author: Max H. Bazerman
Source: DRRC

GI-Fix is a two-party, distributive negotiation between the head of a pharmacy for an HMO and the sales representative of a pharmaceutical company over the price and volume of a drug. The buyer and seller already have a multi-year agreement. The problem involves a situation in which the buyer is planning on violating a contract within an industry that has strong norms against sellers legally enforcing contracts.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Negotiation: 30-45 minutes

GlobeSmart
Author: Leigh Thompson
Source: KTAG

GlobeSmart is a cross-functional team exercise that involves “distance” teamwork. Teams face the multitude of challenges (geographical, cultural, communication, etc.) posed by distance teamwork. The task parallels the Mars Climate Orbiter disaster in 1999, in which one team used metric units and the other used English units for a key operational measurement that ultimately failed. Key learning points focus on the challenges of distance teamwork in terms of communication biases and how to overcome them.

Preparation: 20 minutes
Exercise: 35 minutes

Gold Card
Author: Jeanne M. Brett
Source: DRRC

Gold Card is a three-party dispute resolution exercise. The dispute is between a bank and a financial services firm over aspects of their joint venture to provide a special feature credit card to the financial services firm's upscale clientele. When representatives of the two institutions cannot reach an agreement about implementation, they call in the financial services firm's manager who negotiated the original venture.

Preparation: 20 minutes
Negotiation: 45 minutes

Grand Strand
Author: Holly Schroth
Source: DRRC

Grand Strand is a two-party negotiation based on a real situation. The exercise can be used to illustrate planning and executing a negotiation strategy, especially information sharing to create an integrative agreement and negotiating with a poor BATNA. This exercise is like Texoil in that at first glance there does not appear to be a zone of possible agreement. You may not wish to assign both Texoil and Grand Strand in the same class.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Negotiation: 40 minutes

Granite Corporation in Costa Rica
Authors: Adrianne Kardon & Jeanne M. Brett
Source: DRRC

This negotiation illustrates the situation when a U.S. company has a foreign government on the other side of the table and an activist environmental group demonstrating outside.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

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Harborco
Authors: Denise Madigan & Thomas Weeks
Teaching Notes: Jeanne M. Brett
Source: Harvard Program on Negotiation (PON), DRRC version

This is a multiparty, multi-issue, quantified negotiation. Harborco wishes to develop a deep-water port on the eastern seaboard. Attending the meeting are representatives of the governor, unions, environment, and other parts of the federal government. Most solutions are Pareto optimal. It is useful for discussing leadership of such groups and the role of the party trying to keep the status quo. Please note that the confidential information for the roles in Harborco is widely available on the web.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 90 minutes

Healing
Authors: Maddy Jannsens & Jeanne M. Brett
Source: KTAG

The purpose of this exercise is to have participants experience the frustration of working on a global team where members have different status in the company, different objectives they want to incorporate into their solution for the task, as well as different cultural values and norms for social interaction and group decision making.

Preparation: 40 minutes
Negotiation: 45 minutes
Debrief: 60 minutes

Highest Number Game
Author: J. Keith Murnighan
Source: DRRC

This is a short group exercise that shows negotiating strategies can rarely maximize all possible outcomes, and that low probability/high outcome events should not be expected. No preparation necessary.

Exercise: 5-10 minutes

Hollywood
Authors: Holly A. Schroth, Clarence Chen, Edward Sieh & Patricia Yu
Source: DRRC

Hollywood is an exercise designed to illustrate the role of agents in negotiation. It has two parts: 1) a negotiation between each principal and his/her agent, and 2) a negotiation between agents. The exercise is primarily distributive over salary, but there is the opportunity to add issues to the table.

Preparation: 15-20 minutes
Negotiation: 45 minutes

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Information Game
Author: J. Keith Murnighan
Source: DRRC

This is a two-party negotiation where the individuals have different information and different outcome possibilities. It shows the value of information, the possibility that truthful revelations will not be believed, and the likelihood that relevant information will be withheld to protect one party's interests. Note: The teaching notes for this exercise have been revised.

Preparation: 10 minutes
Negotiation: 25 minutes

Insite!
Author: Leigh Thompson
Source: KTAG

Teams composed of 3-6 members engage in a brainstorming session at INSITE!, a design company in Silicon Valley. The goal of the session is to generate as many original ideas as possible that are potentially feasible for the client, following Osborn's guidelines for successful brainstorming. Reference: Osborn, A.F. 1963. Applied Imagination (3rd edition). New York: Scribner.

Exercise: 60-90 minutes

International Lodging Merger
Authors: Tony Simons & Judi McLean Parks
Source: DRRC

International Lodging Merger is a quantified, integrative negotiation about the merger of a U.S. and a Brazilian hotel chain. The point structure motivates culturally different behaviors from the negotiators. Key cultural differences between the U.S. and Brazil that have been incorporated into the exercise include: time, power distance, individualism/collectivism, and universalism/particularism.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 60-90 minutes

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Lending Limit
Author: Jeanne M. Brett
Source: DRRC

Lending Limit is a manager-as-a-third-party exercise. An account manager for a bank and the bank's manager for its South African branch are disputing whether a client should be given a loan to build a plant in South Africa. The third party is the managers' mutual boss, the executive vice president for commercial lending. Teaching notes for Amanda may be used with this exercise.

Preparation: 15 minutes
Negotiation: 45 minutes

Les Florets
Author: Stephen B. Goldberg
Source: DRRC

A simplified version of Texoil set in France.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Negotiation: 45-60 minutes

Low Price Promotion
Author: Leonard Greenhalgh
Source: Creative Consensus, Inc.

This two-group, multi-round negotiation is a multi-trial prisoner's dilemma set in a corporate context. It works best with groups of four to seven. A messenger is required for every pair of teams. Discussion emphasizes constrained communication, group process (intragroup negotiation), trust, ingroup/outgroup cognitions, groupthink, and intergroup relationships.

Negotiation: 45-60 minutes

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MAPO
Author: Mark N. Gordon; revised by Tim Reiser, Elizabeth Gray, Lynn Gerber, Bruce M. Patton & Valerie A. Sanchez
Source: Harvard Program on Negotiation (PON), DRRC Version

DRRC's version of MAPO is a multi-issue union management contract negotiation, with integrative potential. It comes with numerous exhibits that provide an opportunity to discuss using fairness standards while negotiating distributive agreements. There is also a compatible issue that negotiators often do not find, but is interesting to discuss.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 120 minutes

Mexico Venture
Authors: Holly A. Schroth & Jackie Ramirez
Source: DRRC

Mexico Venture is a negotiation between joint venture partners, one representing the U.S. partner and the other representing the Mexican partner. There are several cross-cultural issues, e.g. currency devaluation and cultural differences in work norms.

Preparation: 15-20 minutes
Negotiation: 45 minutes

Moms.com
Authors: Ann E. Tenbrunsel & Max H. Bazerman
Source: DRRC

This exercise replaces the popular Working Women exercise. Please do not continue to use Working Women.

This is a two-party, quantified, deal making negotiation between a film company and a T.V. station over the syndication rights for a T.V. series, Moms.com. The exercise provides a good opportunity to introduce the concept of Pareto optimality. The teaching notes point out the slight differences between the numbers in the old Working Women exercise and this one.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 90 minutes

Mouse
Authors: Geoffrey Fink & Maria Baute Stewart; edited by Stephen B. Goldberg & Jeanne M. Brett
Source: Harvard Program on Negotiation (PON), DRRC version

Mouse is a six-party negotiation based loosely on EuroDisney's rocky start in France. At the table are four mayors of French communities, a representative of the Mouse Corporation, and an official of the French national government. Mouse teaches multiparty, multi-issue, and multi-cultural negotiation. Interesting teaching points regarding BATNA.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 90 minutes

Multiple Items Game
Author: J. Keith Murnighan
Source: DRRC

These are two two-party negotiations, quantitatively scorable, over three and five issues. The first negotiation displays, quite easily, the value of tradeoffs and the true meaning of win-win agreements. The second negotiation adds a compatible issue (where participants preferences are identical), which: 1) increases the complexity of the negotiation due to additional issues, and 2) allows people to sharpen their abilities to share information effectively and discover valuable tradeoffs.

Preparation: 10 minutes
Negotiation: 25 minutes each

Myti-Pet
Authors: Holly Schroth, Gianmario Corniola & Marjan Voit
Source: DRRC

This two-person/two-team exercise involves a customer goods company and one of its major suppliers. The purpose of the exercise is to: 1) help participants learn how to manage emotions in a negotiation, 2) recognize different sources of power, and 3) work within a team environment where roles must be negotiated. In addition, participants will have to utilize both integrative and distributive negotiation skills. The exercise should be used after students have been introduced to fundamental negotiation concepts for integrative negotiations.

Preparation: 20 minutes
Negotiation: 40-50 minutes

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New Car
Authors: Janice Nadler, Leigh Thompson & Michael Morris
Source: DRRC

This two-party, multi-issue negotiation between a buyer and a seller for a Plymouth Takeover challenges students' integrative and distributive negotiation skills. Participants are randomly assigned to the buyer and seller roles and are provided with information about the various issues, options, and alternatives (e.g., color, financing, warranty, extras, etc.). The goal of each negotiator is to maximize his or her profits. In the negotiation, eight issues are of concern, four of which are variable-sum issues. Following the negotiation, participants may be asked to complete a questionnaire asking each negotiator to: 1) estimate the other party's payoff schedule, and 2) answer questions regarding their perceptions of their own and the other party's behavior, attitudes, and interests.

Preparation: 15-20 minutes
Negotiation: 30-45 minutes

New Recruit
Author: Margaret A. Neale
Source: DRRC

This is a two-party, multi-issue, quantified negotiation over an employment contract. The exercise illustrates Pareto optimality and the differences between compatible, trade-off or integrative, and distributive issues.

Preparation: 15 minutes
Negotiation: 30 minutes

New Ultimatum Game
Author: J. Keith Murnighan
Source: DRRC

This is a market exercise for medium or large groups (i.e., 16 or more) that is played twice with discussion between and after the two plays. One party is given information and power; the other party must deal with a position of relative weakness. Discussion raises issues of fairness, the use of strategic power, equality, and justice.

Preparation: 5-10 minutes
Negotiation: 10 minutes each

Newport Girl Doll Company
Authors: Holly Schroth, Grace Chen, Christine Hamilton, Mary Lee, Monica Lin, Johnny Tong & Jason Wu
Source: DRRC

The exercise Newport Girl Doll Company is a multiparty, multi-issue negotiation designed to simulate negotiations that occur in top management teams. The exercise is based on the real life competition in the doll market to capture the “tween” market. Because the exercise focuses on the new “promiscuous” dolls being marketing to the “tweens”, it provides an opportunity to involve issues of business ethics and social responsibility.

Negotiation: 80 minutes
Debrief: 45-60 minutes

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Oceania!
Author: Leigh Thompson
Source: DRRC

Oceania! is a complex two-party negotiation between a theater manager and a New York production company. There are several issues to be negotiated, and reaching an integrative agreement requires several different kinds of skills. This exercise is a companion exercise to Windy City Theater, which focuses on cross-functional teams.

Preparation: 60-90 minutes
Negotiation: 60-90 minutes

Outside Offer
Author: William Maddux
Source: DRRC

Outside Offer is a two-party, multi-issue negotiation with distributive and integrative elements. It is designed to be used as a second round of negotiation following the New Recruit negotiation exercise. The exercise’s purpose is to give students the experience of a multi-round negotiation. It can be used to teach how previous negotiation history and interpersonal capital (in the form of trust or rapport established in the initial negotiation) can affect the dynamics of subsequent negotiations. Included in the Outside Offer folder is a version of New Recruit that alerts the students that there will be a second round negotiation. If you are going to use the Outside Offer exercise, you should use this version of New Recruit. Note that unlike New Recruit, the issues in Outside Offer are not quantified, although an instructor may wish to make doing so part of the exercise. A 1-3 week gap between New Recruit and Outside Offer is recommended.

Preparation: 30-45 minutes, more if students are required to generate a scoring sheet.
Negotiation: 30-45 minutes
Debrief: 45-60 minutes.

Ozark River Bank
Author: Courtney Shelton Hunt
Source: DRRC

In this exercise, students take on the role of a general manager of the Ozark River Bank (ORB). The objective of the exercise is to have students select three individuals, from the five who are available, to work on a team to devise a restructuring plan for a local company that is anticipated to default on its loans.

The exercise works on two levels. First, it allows students to address the interpersonal and skill factors that contribute to/detract from team functioning. Second, it provides students with direct experience in individual and group decision making. There are some key differences when the exercise is used to reinforce concepts related to intragroup dynamics and when it is used in the context of decision making. Teaching notes are supplied to provide guidelines for using the exercise in a groups/teams context and in a decision making context.

Negotiation: 45-60 minutes
Debrief: 30-40 minutes

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Paradise Project
Authors: Jeanne M. Brett, Rekha Karambayya, Catherine A. Tinsley & Anne Lytle
Source: DRRC

Paradise Project is a version of Amanda set in a Mexican tile manufacturing facility. It is a dispute between two managers in which a third manager gets involved.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

Pat Sullivan
Author: Lynn P. Cohn
Source: DRRC

This exercise illustrates agency and negotiation. There are four parties at the table: 1) a sports star, Pat Sullivan, 2) Pat’s agent/attorney, 3) a VP of Marketing, and 4) the VP’s lawyer. The exercise illustrates the role of agent and client in developing and implementing negotiation strategy.

Preparation: 60-90 minutes
Negotiation: 60-90 minutes

PB Technologies
Author: Randall Peterson
Source: DRRC

PB Technologies is a hidden profile task designed to teach the importance of, and strategies for, effective information sharing in teams. In this activity, the top management team of PB Technologies is asked to recommend to the CEO one of three finalists for the position of Chief Financial Officer (CFO). For one candidate, the only common information is negative, and most groups eliminate her without discussion. If groups do discuss her and share information effectively, they discover that she has the most positive profile overall. The other two candidates each have significant unshared negative information. One candidate has a moderate amount of negative information. Most of unshared information for the other is negative.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Discussion: 20 minutes
Debrief: 45-60 minutes

Performance Interview
Author: Leonard Greenhalgh
Source: Creative Consensus, Inc.

This two-party simulation involves an interaction between a boss and a subordinate. The simulation evokes participants' normal styles of dealing with an interpersonal problem, whether to directly or indirectly address the problem or avoid dealing with it.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Meeting: 30 minutes

Player
Authors: Holly A. Schroth & Rod Kramer
Source: DRRC

This exercise is a two-party, eleven issue, scorable negotiation exercise between a producer and a director. The purpose of this exercise is to help students learn some of the key techniques for integrative negotiation and allow them to assess their skills on both the integrative and distributive dimensions. The exercise should be used following the introduction of such fundamental concepts as BATNA, Resistance Point, and Aspiration Point. The exercise requires students to learn the importance of trust and building a relationship, how to share and elicit information, prioritize issues, and look for logrolling solutions.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Negotiation: 45-50 minutes

Project Team Effectiveness
Author: Leonard Greenhalgh
Source: Creative Consensus, Inc.

This multi-task exercise can accommodate groups of three to ten participants, although five to seven is ideal. It is not a simulation per se, but rather a group of tasks that require different degrees of collaboration, divisions of labor, and creativity. It explores roles in groups, temptation to rationalize the "honor code," intergroup competition, the benefits of diversity, dealing with scarcity, and coping with time pressure. No preparation necessary.

Exercise: 30-45 minutes

Prosando
Authors: Cathy Cronin-Harris & Stephen B. Goldberg
Source: DRRC

This exercise was designed to teach the dispute resolution concepts of interests, rights, and power, as well as some of the more subtle aspects of dispute resolution negotiations, like how to turn rights-oriented or power-oriented negotiators toward interests. The exercise was also designed so that there is no zone of agreement unless the negotiators learn each other’s interests and make appropriate tradeoffs.

Negotiation: 60 minutes
Debrief: 60-90 minutes

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Qualitative Feedback Exercise
Author: Leigh Thompson
Source: KTAG

The purpose of the exercise is threefold: 1) participants learn to provide critical feedback to one another in a supportive, yet direct, fashion; 2) participants learn to accept feedback from others; and 3) team members can plan for change and development.

There are three distinct parts of the exercise: 1) preparing the feedback, 2) giving the feedback (in vivo), and 3) writing a personal development plan.

Part 1: 60-90 minutes
Part 2: 60-75 minutes
Part 3: 30-60 minutes

Quickstop Mall
Author: Lynn P. Cohn
Source: DRRC

Quickstop Mall is a mediation simulation that presents the challenge of a dispute that does not lend itself to an economic resolution. The mediator must focus on interest-based solutions and lead the parties to recognize and respect each other’s interests. This exercise is ideal for the mediation or negotiation instructor trying to encourage students to acknowledge emotions and identify key needs and interests and to discourage them from quickly seeking a financial settlement.

Preparation: 15 minutes
Negotiation: 60-90 minutes
Debrief: 60 minutes

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Rapid Printing vs. Scott Computers, Inc.
Authors: Stephen B. Goldberg & Jeanne M. Brett
Source: DRRC

This is a contract dispute negotiation. It is very good for teaching interests, rights, and power approaches to resolving disputes as well as introducing ADR concepts to management students. There are three different versions of the exercise: CEO only, CEO with lawyers, and Mediation. The CEO only version is for two management students. The CEO with lawyers version is for a joint law-management class, and the Mediation version is for two managers plus a neutral mediator.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 90 minutes

Role Analysis
Author: Leigh Thompson
Source: KTAG

This exercise is best used following a specific exercise or at the end of a longer class or workshop in which members have had an opportunity to work with others. Each participant nominates others for specific group roles (e.g., "information-gatherer," "facilitator," "nay-sayer," etc.). The instructor tabulates the results and provides feedback to class members in an anonymous, aggregated fashion.

Preparation: 15-20 minutes for role analysis.
Exercise: 30-90 minutes plus discussion about roles.

Rooftop Deck
Authors: Vanessa Seiden & Jason Seiden
Source: DRRC

This is a decision that must be made jointly between three interdependent condominium owners. It can be used to teach interests, rights, and power. As not all parties have the same information, it is also useful to teach the value of searching for unique information.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

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Salary Negotiation
Authors: Holly A. Schroth, Gina Ney, Michael Roedter, Adi Rosin & Michael Tiedman
Source: DRRC

This is a qualitative, two-party, salary negotiation between Chris, a graduate MBA student, and his/her potential future boss. The exercise is designed to teach the participants: 1) the value of negotiating package deals versus negotiating issue by issue, 2) the effects of ego, asymmetric expectations, and quality of information (fact vs. subjective) on negotiating strategy, and 3) the importance of maintaining a good relationship.

Preparation: 10-20 minutes
Negotiation: 30-40 minutes

Santara vs. Kessel
Author: Stephen B. Goldberg
Source: DRRC

Santara and Kessel are partners in a catering business. They have been unable to resolve their differences and have agreed to meet with a neutral mediator. A third party mediator is at the table trying to facilitate a resolution.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

SHARC
Authors: Kimberly A. Wade-Benzoni, Ann E. Tenbrunsel & Max H. Bazerman
Source: DRRC

SHARC is a four-party, social dilemma. It is based on the real life crisis in the northeastern fishing industry. It illustrates how asymmetry in interests and outcomes causes different interpretations of fairness. In this exercise, harvesting judgments are biased in an egocentric, self-serving manner. There is s solution in the version of SHARC that allows parties to preserve the resource.

Preparation 30 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

SHARC: Competitive Decision Making Version
Authors: Kimberly A. Wade-Benzoni, Ann E. Tenbrunsel & Max H. Bazerman
Source: DRRC

The Competitive Decision Making version of SHARC is an asymmetric social dilemma. The numbers are not the same as the regular version of SHARC. There is no solution in the Competitive Decision Making version of SHARC that allows parties to cut the harvest to the sustainable level of 2,500 metric tons and to maintain their profits. This is a much harder exercise than the generic version of SHARC, and we recommend it for more advanced MBA students. The teaching notes have been expanded for 2008.

Preparation 30 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

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Silent Bargaining Quiz
Author: J. Keith Murnighan
Source: DRRC

This is a series of "quiz" questions with a scoring rule that "The right answer is the answer that everyone else provided." The quiz forces people to consider what others might do. Discussion highlights how the prominence of particular solutions can help determine a negotiation outcome. This exercise is based on stories told by Thomas Schelling in his book, The Strategy of Conflict, 1960.

Quiz takes about 10 minutes.

Social Services
Author: Denise Madigan
Source: Harvard Program on Negotiation (PON), DRRC version

DRRC's version of Social Services is a three-party, scorable exercise set in the public service sector. Resources available depend on whether the parties form a two- or three-party coalition. Parties also must determine the proportion of resources each will get.

Preparation: 10 minutes
Exercise: 45 minutes

Sound Manufacturing
Authors: Leigh Thompson, Linda Argote & Richard L. Moreland
Source: KTAG

In this exercise, the benefits of group training are illustrated, as well as transactive memory structures. Four-person groups assemble an AM radio and then, several days later, groups assemble the radio from memory.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Exercise: 120 minute training session
Assembly: 90 minutes

Southern Electric
Author: Stephen B. Goldberg
Source: DRRC

This is a mediation of a labor grievance. The grievant has been discharged following three "preventable" accidents. The company has a rule that requires discharging any employee who, in the course of operating company vehicles, is involved in three preventable accidents in a three-year period. The use of information is an interesting issue in this exercise.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

Squabbling Authors
Author: Katheryn M. Dutenhaver
Source: DRRC

Two anthropologists have finished a book manuscript and are having trouble deciding whose name should go first. Squabbling Authors can be used as a mediation exercise or it can be used to demonstrate the difference between mediation and arbitration.

Preparation: 5 minutes
Arbitration: 10-15 minutes
Mediation: 15-20 minutes

STAR
Author: Stephen B. Goldberg
Source: DRRC

This is a two-party, qualitative negotiation with integrative potential. The negotiation occurs between representatives of two record companies and is about which company will produce the first new record of a once popular rock group that has reunited after 13 years apart.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 90 minutes

Stopwatch
Author: Don Moore
Source: DRRC

Stopwatch is a two-party, multi-issue negotiation with integrative potential set in the context of a buyer-seller transaction. Its main lesson surrounds the understanding and strategic disclosure of deadlines in negotiation.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Negotiation: 30 minutes
Debrief: 60 minutes

Strategic Alliances: Selling to the Pentagon
Author: Leonard Greenhalgh
Source: DRRC

This exercise involves a series of negotiations between three teams over a pot of money, created by contributions from each participant. We recommend team sizes of less than ten and two exercise administrators. In addition to the negotiating room, each team will need a caucus room that is out of earshot from the other teams. Learning points include multilateral communication, group process (intragroup negotiation), group decision making, contracts, and intergroup and interpersonal relationships.

Exercise: 60 minutes

Student Project
Author: Leigh Thompson
Source: DRRC

This is a two-party, integrative negotiation concerning a class project organized between two students. Each person plays the role of a student assigned to work on a class project with another student. Together the students must reach an agreement about what they will do and how they will complete the project. Students are given a list of issues they must work out concerning the project, e.g., topic to study, type of project, work schedule, method of presentation, etc. The goal is to work out the terms of the project with the other student in a way that maximizes each student's objectives.

Preparation: 15-20 minutes
Negotiation: 30-45 minutes

Sugar Bowl
Author: Gaylen D. Paulson
Source: DRRC

Sugar Bowl is a fun and compact introductory exercise originally designed for use in short negotiation seminars or workshops. The exercise presents a very approachable negotiating context, and one that persons are likely to feel is relevant to their own experiences. The key to the exercise is a relatively generous positive bargaining zone that often leaves both sides initially feeling successful, but later realizing they might have gotten a better distributive outcome (and thereby making them more receptive to course material). In a very short space of time, issues are raised related to aspirations, reservation prices, alternatives, bargaining zones, and tactics for effective value claiming

Preparation: 5 minutes
Negotiation: 5-10 minutes
Debrief: 15-20 minutes

Summer Interns Program
Authors: Roy Lewicki & Blair Sheppard; edited by Catherine A. Tinsley & Jeanne M. Brett
Source: DRRC

This is a dispute between the heads of engineering and personnel. It can be used to teach interests, rights, and power in multiple cultures. It has good comparative culture data in the teaching notes.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

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Team Assessment
Authors: Leigh Thompson, Deborah Gruenfeld, Nancy Rothbard & Charles Naquin
Source: KTAG

This exercise is an assessment tool for team members who have been working together on projects and who expect to continue to work together in the future. The objective of the exercise is to provide a "safe" forum for team members to air and discuss concerns that otherwise might not get articulated. Further, it provides an opportunity for group members to assess how they perceive the group to be functioning. Finally, it is an opportunity for members to develop and discuss active plans for future work together.

Preparation: 10 minutes
Exercise: 60-90 minutes

Team Contract
Authors: Leigh Thompson & Deborah Gruenfeld
Source: KTAG

Intact working groups develop a team contract, which specifies the norms, behaviors, expectations, and responsibilities for which they will hold themselves and the other team members accountable. An example of a team contract from industry is provided.

Preparation: 10-15 minutes
Exercise: 60-120 minutes

Team Quiz
Author: Leigh Thompson
Source: KTAG

The teamwork quiz is neither a case nor an exercise. It is an ice-breaker, ideally suited for the beginning of a semester-long course on teams.

Quiz: 5-10 minutes
Debrief: 5-10 minutes or 30-50 minutes, depending on whether it is being taught as an icebreaker or a stand alone exercise.

Telepro
Authors: Holly A. Schroth & Gary Riding
Source: DRRC

This is a dispute between a supervisor and an employee in which a third party, the supervisor's manager, becomes involved. The exercise can be used to teach mediation in the management context. It also illustrates how power and status differences between parties can be managed in a mediated context.

Preparation: 15-20 minute
Negotiation: 70 minutes

Texoil
Author: Stephen B. Goldberg
Source: DRRC

This is a qualitative negotiation over the sale of some property. The exercise has no overlapping bargaining zone unless the parties uncover some of each other's interests. It is a very good exercise for teaching about interests, what information should and should not be shared, and creativity in negotiations.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

Threat Target
Author: Leigh Thompson & Mary P. Flammang
Source: KTAG

Threat Target is a hidden profile exercise in which four analysts, each with somewhat different information, need to determine which of three terrorists poses the greatest threat to the United States. The exercise does not require experience in intelligence, but it was developed with input from CIA analysts and thus is very realistic.

Preparation: 30-45 minutes
Negotiation: 30-45 minutes
Debrief: 45-50 minutes

Three Hour Tour
Author: Kristin Behfar
Source: KTAG

This case demonstrates how logical (and necessary) process direction from a leader can upset the balance of a team when done incorrectly. Concepts to touch on during the debrief include: single vs. double loop communication, earning team respect, team culture or norms, team process planning/coordination, media richness, matching correct leadership style with the situation, and effective use of formal vs. informal power.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Debrief: 40-90 minutes

Tipal Dam
Authors: Peter Wheelan & Jeanne M. Brett
Source: DRRC

This is a transactional negotiation between a construction company and a foreign government. Tipal Dam is useful for teaching negotiation ethics in a cross-cultural context.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

Towers Market
Authors: Rebecca Beggs, Jeanne M. Brett & Laurie Weingart
Source: DRRC

This is a multiparty (4), multi-issue (5), quantified negotiation. The exercise is useful for teaching negotiation concepts in the context of group decision making. There are many Pareto optimal solutions and even more that are suboptimal.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

Trust Game
Author: J. Keith Murnighan
Source: DRRC

This exercise illustrates the difference between rational choice theory and game theory predictions of behavior in a situation of trust and actual behavior. People are more trusting than rational theory would predict.

Preparation: 5-10 minutes
Negotiation: 45 minutes

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Ultimatum Game
Author: J. Keith Murnighan
Source: DRRC

Preparation: 5-10 minutes
Negotiation: 10 minutes each

Universal Telecom
Author: Kristin Behfar
Source: KTAG

This case demonstrates how different personalities and different individual priorities can make coordinating group process difficult. In the case, the presales team of Universal Telecom is experiencing internal coordination/communication problems within their department as well as external coordination/communication problems with the larger Universal Telecom organization and the company’s customers. The value of this case is that it forces students to consider the relationship between group dynamics and the operating context of the team, as well as the impact that team decisions have on group process over time.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Debrief: 30-45 minutes

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Vacation Plans
Authors: Leigh Thompson & Terri DeHarpport
Source: DRRC

This is a two-party negotiation in which participants plan a vacation together. The negotiators are long time friends who nevertheless have very different preferences concerning how to spend the vacation. Integrative solutions are possible, in which participants maximize their joint gain by logrolling and identifying compatible interests.

Negotiation: 25 minutes

Viking Investments
Authors: Leonard Greenhalgh
Source: Creative Consensus, Inc., DRRC version

This complex multi-issue, two-party negotiation of a dispute between a real estate developer and a subcontractor emphasizes escalation of commitment and the effects of focusing on rights or interests in dispute resolution.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

Virtual Victorian
Authors: Wendi Adair, Gaylen D. Paulson & W. Trexler Proffitt, Jr.
Source: DRRC

Virtual Victorian is a distributive, house buying negotiation that is carried out through agents and via email. There are four parties: the buyer, the buyer's agent, the seller, and the seller's agent.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: one week (email)

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Where’s Alvin? A Case of Lost Ethics
Authors: Margaret Calonico, Robert Inchausti & Holly A. Schroth
Source: DRRC

Where's Alvin is a two-party negotiation between a manager and an employee that poses an ethical problem. The employee has stolen company property. The manager has some culpability in that he/she did not follow company policy regarding security checks in hiring the employee. As a further complication, the manager and employee are, or at least were, friends.

Preparation: 20 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

Windy City Theater
Authors: Leigh Thompson, Jo-Ellen Pozner & Jennifer Bloniarz
Source: KTAG

A five-member, cross-functional team, comprised of the finance, sales, advertising, catering, and operations managers of an upscale, 4000 seat theater in downtown Chicago, make a critical new product decision. Each member of the team has a different agenda and incentives. The exercise focuses on the common-information effect and cross-functional team members as information silos. It is a "sister" exercise to the Oceania! negotiation.

Preparation: 60-90 minutes
Exercise: 60-90 minutes

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